How to Connect a Webhook to Receive Events

A webhook lets one service push an event to yours the moment it happens, no polling required. To use one you need an endpoint that accepts a POST, a registration on the sending side, and a way to confirm events land. This guide wires all three.

What you need

• A service that can send webhooks (payments, forms, a repo host)
• Somewhere to run a small endpoint, or a tunneling tool for local testing
• About 12 minutes

Step 1: Expose an endpoint

Create a route that accepts a POST and returns a 200 quickly. The sender only cares that you acknowledge fast; do the heavy work afterward.

app.post('/webhooks/incoming', (req, res) => {
  res.sendStatus(200);        // acknowledge immediately
  queue.add('handle', req.body); // process out of band
});

Step 2: Make it reachable

For local testing, a tunnel gives the outside world a public URL that forwards to your machine. In production, use your deployed domain instead.

Step 3: Register the URL

In the sending service's dashboard, add your full endpoint URL and pick which events to receive. Subscribe only to the events you actually handle.

Step 4: Verify the signature

Most services sign each payload. Check the signature header against your secret so you only trust events that truly came from the sender.

Result: real events flow into your system the instant they occur, acknowledged fast and verified as genuine before you process them.